Online fraud attemtps up 22% during the 2017 holiday season

16 January 2018

According to the report published by ACI Worldwide, a Florida-based payment services provider, the number of fraud attempts during the holiday season of 2017 was 22% up as compared to the similar period a year ago. The report unveils that the fraud increase accompanied the growth in overall transactions performed online in the period from Thanksgiving to the end of 2017, which surged 19% up from the figures recorded in 2016.

ACI found that the highest volume of attempts to commit the fraud was recorded on Thanksgiving and stood at 1.94%, compared to 1.26% in 2016. It was followed by the growth rate of fraud attempts made on Christmas Eve and on December 21, the cutoff date for express shipments, standing at 1.78% and 1.67% compared to 1.48% and 1.49% in 2016, respectively.

The report further states that around one in every 85 transactions made online was a scam attempt, which is opposed by one out of every 95 transactions in 2016, and one out of every 109 transactions in 2015.

Erika Dietrich, speaking for ACI, noted that during the holiday season in 2017 merchants saw a robust growth in their digital channels along with remarkable increase in frauds. This signals the need for the merchants to reinforce their efforts to analyze weak spots across multiple payment ecosystems and generate short and long-term plans for strengthening their security measures, while ensuring higher customer experience.

Total volume of spending recorded during Thanksgiving accounted for $2.87 billion, a 18.3 growth above the figure reported in 2016, and on Black Friday this number stood at $5.3 billion, up 16.9% on year over year.